Sacramento Mountain residents at meeting weary of military

Janessa Maxilom/Daily News
Citzens from Weed and other mountain communities vote on issues that matter to them during a JLUS meeting held at the Weed Community Center on Monday.

After years of an unfavorable relationship with the Department of Defense, citizens of Weed voiced their concerns and questions during a Joint Land Use Study meeting on Monday.

The JLUS meeting was held at the Weed Community Center to provide rural mountain residents a chance to have input in the ongoing study, which is being conducted in Otero County, the city of Alamogordo and other government entities to focus on compatibility issues with local military bases.

The commission chairman for Otero County, Susan Flores, said the commission made a point of holding a JLUS meeting in Weed because they knew the denizens had concerns.

John Bell, president of the Weed Community Association, thought the meeting was helpful because it provided much-needed information about JLUS and gave residents a chance to have a say in the study. Bell said inhabitants of the southern Sacramento Mountains were weary of military-related operations and studies because of how often they have been taken advantage of.

"The background is the military has taken a lot from families up here in the mountains," Bell said. "A lot of the ranching families were forced off the land down on McGregor Range."

Bell said the military had informed those families they would be paid for their land or would be temporarily moved until further notice.

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"They are never going to get it back and they never got paid a fair price for it. So there are hard feelings here toward being run over by the military, not getting compensation or not getting fair justice," Bell said.

Elizabeth Drake, JLUS project manager and associate principal with AECOM, said during the meeting it was clear that the people who live in the region were concerned because the meeting in Weed was the largest JLUS meeting thus far.

"We know that this is a known sensitive spot for aircraft noise," Drake said.

Drake tried to soothe concerned citizens during the meeting by saying the study was being held with their best interest in mind.

"We're a little jaded," Weed resident Ellen Kazor said. "Our experience with the environmental impact statement has been that data is selectively excluded and included in studies."

Kazor said in the past data was managed and analyzed in ways that favored military missions and operations.

Drake said the JLUS was different from an EIS in that an EIS was more prescriptive. She said a JLUS doesn't have one formula to follow, which makes it possible to tailor the document for local communities.

"We will certainly look at environmental and natural resource issues," Drake said. "But we don't tie them to the particular demographic or economic status or characteristics of the communities."

Drake said the final JLUS document would be more focused on steps geared specifically to the individual stakeholders.

Weed resident Walt Coffman was concerned small communities wouldn't have a proper voice in the study. He was also worried about how candid the JLUS was being conducted.

"I think they're not being transparent," Coffman said. "The partners in this study consist of state agencies, federal agencies and city governments. There's no representation by rural residents."

Drake said the purpose of holding a JLUS meeting in a small town like Weed was to get input from rural communities.

Coffman said another aspect of the JLUS he was concerned about was how findings from the study would be implemented once all the data was gathered.

Drake said counties don't have to abide by the JLUS study, and each individual county would decide upon all actions taken based on the gathered information.

Coffman said Drake's response was not completely honest.

"If you're a partner in the study, when you sign on to it, you have to also agree to implement the terms decided during the study," Coffman said.

According to the Office of Economic Adjustment and the DOD, if the JLUS is to have positive results, the participating jurisdiction and military installation must agree to make a good faith pledge to implement development controls to achieve compatibility.

Coffman said if the county decided to implement new laws based on the findings of the study, it could infringe upon the rights of residents from small towns without any economic benefit.

Bell said rural areas are probably going to get a lot of the impact without any economic benefit.

"So we need to figure out how to compensate our people," he said. "We don't want them to go infringing on our rights to build a wind tower."

According to the OEA and DOD, JLUS implementation measures may involve revisions to the community's comprehensive plan, and traditional land use and development controls, such as zoning, subdivision regulations, structural height restrictions and promotion of planned unit development concepts.

Drake said the JLUS was in the process of transitioning from the existing conditions phase to the compatibility analysis phase and that the study was still a ways from the plan development phase or even the implementation phase. She said the current goal is still to collect data to understand compatibility issues.

"I think if we can have input that is legitimate in the study and our issues are understood, then possibly we can avoid confrontation later," Bell said. "We are looking for win-win solutions. We just don't want to be harmed in the process."

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